#1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time - Page 20

On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote:
I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.

While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me

- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other).
- There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant.
- There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others)
- There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018)
- There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019)
- There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023)
- There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023).
- There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017.
- There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25)
- There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved

Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):

vs Maru: 13:4:2
vs Dark: 8:5:1
vs GuMiho: 10:4:0
vs Solar: 16:7:1
vs Cure: 17:3:0
vs ByuN: 12:5:0
vs Classic: 8:2:0
vs Bunny: 9:2:0
vs stats: 9:4:0
vs soO: 8:4:0
vs Innovation: 16:8:0
vs Rogue: 8:6:0
vs Trap: 14:3:0
vs Zest: 10:5:0

And here the records vs some top world players :

vs Reynor: 31:16:0
vs MaxPax: 18:4:0
vs Heromarine: 26:4:0

That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.

That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else.
Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.

To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.

To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win.
The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.

To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.

Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds.
Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats.
BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.

To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”?
He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above).
Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons.
Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to.
That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all.
All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits.
Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?

Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.

Anyways, these are my thoughts.

Share statistics, if you disagree

On March 21 2024 01:18 WombaT wrote:

It’s their own post made in different threads.

And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!

On March 21 2024 02:23 WombaT wrote:

Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least

From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.

Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.

To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.

On March 21 2024 01:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"

To the KR prep elitists, yes.

Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?

Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments

On March 21 2024 01:58 Comedy wrote:


It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.

On March 21 2024 01:58 Comedy wrote:


It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.

On March 21 2024 02:46 WombaT wrote:

Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^

Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case

On March 21 2024 02:57 goldensail wrote:


When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.

Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.

I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator):
www.dailyesports.com

The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.

When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?

So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.

You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.